


Nix

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, casefile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 23:29:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12352755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: A casefile horror story in 1013 words for Fox Mulder's birthday.





	Nix

The word shatters in the frigid air. Her gun feels like ice in her hand. Her fingertips are purple. The lake is a frosted blue stain in the white-green field. The man holds the child by her ponytail and her cheeks are daubed with red-raw fear. Scully notices the colour. Blood blooms under her skin in an otherwise monotone scape.  
“Freeze,” she repeats and something in her wants to giggle at the absurdity. She presses her lips together and steadies her aim. “FBI. Let her go, Mr Carbone. Don’t let this end badly.”  
The snow started as soon as they got to the house. It had been ten degrees and bright skied at the airport but turning into the driveway of the Carbone family home, fat chunks of snow had settled on the windshield and flakes collected into a thick white line before being spread across the glass on the wiper blades.  
“It’s October, Scully.”  
She sighed as they pulled up. “And it’s snowed in Hawaii in June before, Mulder.”

Mela Carbone was a thin, cold woman. Fitting really, as the temperature inside the house was near freezing. Scully pulled her jacket round her but her skin was already wrinkling and she felt a drop of moisture form at the end of her nose.  
“We’ve had reports of strange phenomena here. Deaths.”  
“You’ll have to wait for my husband to get back,” she said. “Charlotte, take that thing out of here.”  
A white rabbit nestled in the crook of a small girl’s arm, its red eyes half-closed. Charlotte, pale like her mother, stared at them.  
“Charlotte? That’s a nice name,” Scully said, kneeling. “What’s your rabbit called?”  
“She calls him Nix.”  
“The Latin word for snow,” Mulder said.  
“I don’t know where she gets this stuff from. She never talks to anyone or goes anywhere but she knows things. Strange things.” Mela Carbone shivered and pulled a pair of mugs from a tree. “I make good coffee. Want one?”  
Scully nodded her head and watched Charlotte walk up the stairs to the house. A layer of silvery dust lay on the banister rail. The child stopped mid-way and turned to smile. Scully felt gooseflesh prickle her skin.  
“Who’s this in the photo with Charlotte?” Mulder was holding a silver-framed photo. A mahogany line left in its wake on the dusty sideboard.  
The kettle squealed. Mela Carbone snatched it from him and slammed it back in its place. “You should wait until Anthony comes back.”  
The sofa was worn and cool. Scully sipped her coffee to keep warm. Her nose ran and she fished a tissue out of her bag. Mulder wouldn’t sit, pacing the room. Mela Carbone busied herself in the kitchen.  
He motioned for her to come over. “This isn’t dust,” he said. The tip of his finger held the lightest crackling of ice. “It’s frost.”  
She looked around. “This whole place is frozen from the inside.”  
Scully frowned. The report had been bizarre. Several suspicious deaths in the town, including a child at the school, where Anthony Carbone was principal. All died of hypothermia.  
“We need to speak to the child,” Mulder said, looking across at Mela Carbone. “I’ll distract her, you go to upstairs.”  
She could hear Mulder’s voice rise and fall as she knocked lightly at Charlotte’s door. The wood was cool and the paint splintered off. She could see her breath in front of her as she entered. Charlotte was sitting on the floor, holding the rabbit.  
“Hi. Can I talk to you?” Charlotte shrugged. Scully heard a car crunching over the gravel driveway. “That might be your Daddy.”  
The girl stood, hoisting Nix over her shoulder. Her face paled even more, her blue eyes widening.  
“What is it? What’s the matter, Charlotte?”  
As the girl ran past, Scully heard the name ‘Eric’ and felt the blast of frozen air chill her to the bone.  
Mela Carbone dropped the packet of flour she was holding and it thudded to the floor scattering it over the boards. “Charlotte! Come back!”  
Mulder was quicker than her over the frozen ground outside. The grass crunched under her feet and the snow pelted her skin, pricking her face. Charlotte was fast, ducking around the familiar furniture in the yard. She headed to the fields beyond, fading into the whiteness.  
Carbone fired. The bullet caught Mulder in the upper right arm and he dropped, crimson spilling onto the white. Scully knelt.  
He gritted his teeth, yanking off his tie. She bound it round his arm. “Go.”  
She looked to see Carbone grab Charlotte.

She presses her lips together and steadies her aim. “FBI. Let her go, Mr Carbone. Don’t let this end badly.”  
“Eric is here,” he says.  
“Who’s Eric?”  
Charlotte cries. Nix is still in her arms.  
“He’s evil.” Carbone says. He’s edging back towards the lake. “He wouldn’t stay dead.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“He drowned under the ice. But he came back. He keeps coming back.”  
Scully frowns, regripping the gun. “Where is he?”  
Carbone nods behind him. “Everything he touches freezes.”  
The snow thickens but Scully sees the shadow through it.  
“No, Eric!” Charlotte screams and lets go of the rabbit. Its stiff body drops to the ground, lifeless.  
Wriggling in her father’s arms, Charlotte dislodges herself. Carbone loses his balance, tumbling back, his gun firing into the air. He falls into the lake, disappearing under the ice, resurfacing only to be taken under again by an arm.  
Mulder staggers to Scully’s side, clutching his shoulder. Charlotte wails over the dead rabbit. Mela arrives. “Where’s Anthony?”  
Scully shakes her head.  
Scully closes the door to Charlotte’s room and looks through the window. She’s clutching the plush rabbit the ER nurse found for her, her mother by her side.  
“She’s fine, Mulder.”  
He pockets his phone. “They pulled two bodies from the lake.”  
“Anthony and Eric Carbone?”  
“Eric’s body is perfectly preserved, according to Police Chief. Yet he drowned two years ago.”  
“About when the deaths started.”  
She nods. “And when Charlotte told her mother about her father’s abuse.”


End file.
